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New Kingdom Love Songs
The New Kingdom Love Songs are the earliest recorded songs found in regards to Ancient Egypt, dating to the New Kingdom of pharonic Egypt (1600 B.C. – 1085 B.C.). They were discovered in four locations: on the Harris Papyrus 500 (currently located at the British Museum), the Chester Beatty Papyrus (currently located at the British Museum), the Turin 1966 (currently located at the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Italy), and one ostracon (the fragments of a vase) (ostracon 25218 is located in the Cairo Museum and was found at Deir el-Medina). The songs themselves date back to an oral tradition of the ancient world; they detail humorous, satirical, idyllic, and naïve romance. Although written using sophisticated language, they detail examples of daily life for the average Egyptian. Unfortunately, a good deal of the love songs found on the ostracon at Deir el-Medina are fractured—while most have been translated, some are missing enough parts to be untranslatable.
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An example of an erotic ostracon found at Deir el-Medina.
Although the songs were written down, they are the verbal equivalent of the hieratic writing (the cursive form of ancient hieroglyphs). Since the songs were grouped together on the papyri, they were separated through a series of dots called “verse points” or a notation before the poem/song (either a number, such as on the Chester Beatty Papyrus, or a forearm with a hand palm down in Papyrus Harris 500). It is interesting to note that following the transcription of a song, the scribe would add a colophon (a particular hieroglyph) to show he was an accurate copyist.
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